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What kind of news stories do you share with your kids?


saraha
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We don't have tv and only get our small town weekly paper, so my husband and I get our news from the internet. When I was a kid, I heard all kinds of news from the nightly 6 o'clock news and my parents subscribed to the Detroit Free Press daily paper, so news stories were all around. In order for my kids to be exposed to the news, I would have to mindfully direct them to it.

Today I read a story on MSN that I was thinking about sharing with my kids about a young woman who was abducted at her college campus, got away, ran to a house where there was only a 14yo, 11yo, and a 2yo at home. The 14yo let her in and while she called 911 he stood at the door with a hunting knife and watched the man pour gasoline on their house and light it. At some point, I think, one of his parents got there and put out the fire (not sure about this last detail). I think this is a good story to share with them for a few reasons. 1. be safe and aware of your surroundings (the kidnap victim) 2. make good decisons (the boy had probably been told not to let strangers in, but he did in this case) 3. Use your brain (she risked her life jumping from a moving car, but would have been dead if she didn't)

Now, I think my 13 and 11 yos would be old enough to hear and understand this story. But it got me to thinking, because I have to purposely share the news with my kids, what kind of things should I be sharing? When relatives were talking at dinner about fiscal cliffs, and Lance Armstrong and coverups in the middle east, my kids didn't really pay attention because they had no idea what people were talking about.

How do you expose your kids to news, at what ages, and what kinds?

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I don't expose myself to much news. I only get it from the BBC and perhaps one of the catholic news sites. My dd is a worrier. I'd go so far as to say she suffers from anxiety so I just don't expose her to much of the day to day ugliness. I did tell her about the recent school shooting. But that is all since the tsunami that hit Japan.

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My daughter will be 16 in a few weeks. She is exposed to news fairly regularly, so I don't need to point out headline-type stories.

 

She learned to appreciate current events through her 20th century history and geography courses. Because she has studied and travelled to different countries, her ears perk up when she hears them mentioned.

 

What I share with her (mostly through e-mail, since she goes to a nearby boarding school) are stories that relate to her interests. Just a few minutes ago I sent her an article concerning the Bolshoi Ballet (she used to be very involved in ballet, and we have seen the Bolshoi perform numerous times). Articles about animals are always appreciated, and so is anything to do with One Direction, Taylor Swift, and other teen idols.

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One of my boys likes to be in on whatever news I listen to, so I try to be sure I've read the news every day BEFORE we listen to anything in the car. We do not watch news on television. I like to try to be informed before discussing things. Honestly, that's kind of hard to do. So many stories are incomplete when they get reported. It often seems to take a minimum of 24 hours for anything to reflect an iota of accuracy. Sometimes more like 24 days.

But that in itself is an opportunity to teach the value of being patient and not rushing to judgement.

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Also -- Have you thought about subscribing to a kids' news magazine? If your family is Christian, they might enjoy the student magazines (like Top Story) from World Magazine. Probably Scholastic has a weekly reader-type magazine for students of your children's ages.

 

The more news your children are exposed to in an appropriate way, the better. The nice thing about the kids' news magazines is that they filter the stories and make them appropriate for their intended audience.

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I usually have NPR on for part of the day. They hear whatever is on that and I don't turn it off due to their ages unless a story is going to be quite explicit. I recall spending some time after the big news around Osama bin Laden being killed to educate my older son on a bit of the history surrounding the conflict around the world.

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We're not news junkies. I read the headlines each evening to stay aware of what's going on in the world, and then read any stories that warrant my attention. DH is similar. No regular TV or newspapers here. We both follow tech and science news very closely. My older son reads the news online on his own because he likes to keep abreast of things so he can talk with my dad, whom is a total news junkie. My youngest is only interested in science news. We all talk about current events at the dinner table each night, though, so they have a pretty decent exposure to what's going on in the world even if they aren't watching the nightly news.

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We're all news junkies around here. Other than when my kids were very young and the news was truly traumatic (i.e., 9/11), I've never seen anything to be gained from shielding them from world events. To me discussing current events is a huge part of their education. I understand others have completely differing views on that, and I'm fine with other families doing things their own way.

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I'm an NPR junkie, and my kids have been listening to (or at least hearing) news on the radio their whole lives.

 

When they were little, I used judgement on the fly about turning the sound down or off if there was a story I suspsected might be upsetting to them. Otherwise, it was on most of the time we drove anywhere (and still is). As they've matured, they have naturally started paying more attention, asking questions and discussing things with me. So, we've talked about pretty much anything that caught their interest.

 

My daughter has been able to rattle off the pledge drive phone number for our local affifiate since she was a toddler. For the last few years, she's sought out her own preferred news sources, primarily internet based, and is now often the one to bring things to my attention.

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When my kids were younger, I made a point of not letting them hear stories of things that might hit close to home (school shootings, child kidnappings and murders, etc.) or other things that I just wouldn't want their sweet minds to know about yet (the bus rape in India, for example). We did talk about news stories that were positive, relevant or interesting, especially international news events that were in the headlines a lot but wouldn't cause them to lose sleep at night.

 

We are a family that follows international news quite closely, so we discussed it in simpler terms then, and often, now.

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Well in general we don't regularly turn the news on unless something big is going on such as an election, big storm etc. If it is on the kids come and go as they please and see what's on. My oldest will watch it and ask bunches of questions and my second oldest pays a little bit of attention. Other than that we see news online and again if my oldest takes an interest in it, and as long as the story isn't inappropriate(bus rapes etc.) I will show him a video clip of it or let him read it with me. I think it is important for kids to at least know about important or events that will affect them. For instance my kids know about the election, hurricane Sandy, the Sandy Hook shooting, but they don't really know or care about celebrity type stuff or political stuff that they wouldn't understand anyways. If my son overhears something such as the Lance Armstrong scandal and asks me about it we discuss it but I don't make a point of telling him about it KWIM. I'm not sure if that makes sense but to sum it up I don't really intentionally shelter them from most news. If it interests them we will watch it and discuss it. I don't really have to shelter my little ones from it because they really have no interest in news. ;)

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DS11 is a big NPR fan. He even listens to Marketplace! :p

 

In addition to whatever he hears there, I will occasionally print articles from the internet for him to read. Recent examples: the considerable health dangers of drinks like Monster; a terrible local accident in which a teenage unlicensed driver stole a parent's car, lost control, hit someone's house, and caused the death of his friend; and a primer on the fiscal cliff that DS requested. Oh, I often print paleontological news, too. :)

 

I don't have any hard and fast rules concerning what can be shared, but I do consider his age and sensitivity when deciding what to share and how to share it.

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We don't share any news with DS unless it directly impacts him in some way (ie. suspicious cars in the neighborhood etc.). I just don't see much point in drilling it in how much of a horrible world we live in. There are other ways to teach him safety. He's not dumb though, he has a laptop and sees the front page stories on Yahoo, though I don't think he reads any of them and part of his school work everyday is to watch CNN Student News. It's 10 min. long in the morning and is more kid-friendly than a traditional news program. He also keeps tabs on sports and weather news. Honestly, as a family none of us watches, reads or keeps up with the news at all. DH reads the local news online occasionally and catches some of the highlights on his homepage and I steer clear of ALL of it.

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